Well, That Was Worth It
Once more, with feeling:
When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida—chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates—was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
Weird. It always works in 24 episodes
March 29, 2009 10:16 am
Posted in: Outrage, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin., War on Terror aka GSAVE®
30 Comments
30 Responses
JL - March 29, 2009 | 10:23 am · Link
Any one want to wager whether or not 24/7 covers this story?
valdivia - March 29, 2009 | 10:24 am · Link
1. they broke the law and it didn’t work
2. but they kept us saaaaaaafe!
3.the wingnuts now say the Spanish are pursuing an inquisition.
4. my head explodes from Teh Stupid
Nick - March 29, 2009 | 10:29 am · Link
"Others in the U.S. government, including CIA officials, fear the consequences of taking a man into court who was waterboarded on largely false assumptions, because of the prospect of interrogation methods being revealed in detail and because of the chance of an acquittal that might set a legal precedent. Instead, they would prefer to send him to Jordan."
Yeah, we don’t want testimony to reveal exactly how we tortured this guy. And once that testimony is adduced, then the case will be tossed and the other detainees at Gitmo will line up for their turn at acquital
Let’s just send this f***** to Jordan, where they can bury him in their prison system.
El Cid - March 29, 2009 | 10:30 am · Link
But I thought you had to have the new digital converter box before being able to receive the "enhanced interrogation" broadcasts?
Maybe they were just tuning in in analog and unable to receive the crystal clarity of the real enhanced revelations.
MattF - March 29, 2009 | 10:36 am · Link
This is just disgusting. Did the "former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations" believe that all the very well-known and very well-documented facts about the uselessness of torture were just so much weak-willed propaganda from effete liberals? Or what? I just can’t think of any explanation.
Nick - March 29, 2009 | 10:40 am · Link
"We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms," one former intelligence official said.
Despite the poor results, Bush White House officials and CIA leaders continued to insist that the harsh measures applied against Abu Zubaida and others produced useful intelligence that disrupted terrorist plots and saved American lives.
Two weeks ago, Bush’s vice president, Richard B. Cheney, renewed that assertion in an interview with CNN, saying that "the enhanced interrogation program" stopped "a great many" terrorist attacks on the level of Sept. 11.
"I’ve seen a report that was written, based upon the intelligence that we collected then, that itemizes the specific attacks that were stopped by virtue of what we learned through those programs," Cheney asserted, adding that the report is "still classified," and, "I can’t give you the details of it without violating classification."
Since 2006, Senate intelligence committee members have pressed the CIA, in classified briefings, to provide examples of specific leads that were obtained from Abu Zubaida through the use of waterboarding and other methods, according to officials familiar with the requests.
The agency provided none, the officials said. —————————————
Millions spent on hundreds of CIA and FBI agents chasing false alarms created by torturing the guy.
Dick Cheney—"great many" terrorist attacks prevented, but can’t tell you because it would violate (Plame) classification (Plame).
Would Dick Cheney exaggerate?
Michael - March 29, 2009 | 10:46 am · Link
Gonzo, Yoo, Feith and the like are now limited to vacationing within the continental US, so as not to even risk crossing an international boundary for fear of arrest and extradition.
Bush and Cheney are also going to be so limited.
This is completely cool, and I’m OK with that.
zirconium - March 29, 2009 | 10:47 am · Link
But torture is fun!
Incertus - March 29, 2009 | 10:50 am · Link
I wonder how many of the apologists for the Bush administration will recant their support, given the number of these stories that are coming out recently? I’ve had to read "the Dark Art of Interrogation" by Mark Bowden because I’ve been using it in my Comp 2 class this term, and it’s amazing how, in 2003, he was willing to not only swallow, but carry the company line on torture. It’s been handy for me as a teacher to be able to show how time has turned Bowden’s suppositions into out-and-out errors, but I’m still curious to see if he and others like him have rethought their positions.
Mike in NC - March 29, 2009 | 11:02 am · Link
Always suspected that Dick Cheney was a vicious sociopath for the majority of his public career, but reading Ron Suskind’s "The One Percent Doctrine" removed any doubt.
El Cid - March 29, 2009 | 11:08 am · Link
All this still simply proves that everything was Bill Clinton’s fault.
If he had just ignored all the Republicans scoffing and blocking his concerns about Al Qa’ida and Osama bin Laden and had transported secret agents into the future who could act when Bush Jr. spent 8 early months not giving the slightest sh*t about the security of the domestic USA, none of this would have happened.
joe from Lowell - March 29, 2009 | 11:10 am · Link
On the other hand, the torture of "Curveball" confirmed that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear program and a working relationship with al Qaeda.
So…there’s that.
Zifnab - March 29, 2009 | 11:29 am · Link
Wasn’t there even an episode in 24 where he tortures a guy to admitting where the bomb is, and the guy sends him to the wrong location?
I mean, even the TV show explores the moral and technical failures of the practice better than the previous administration did.
me - March 29, 2009 | 12:04 pm · Link
The comfy chair will break them.
The Other Steve - March 29, 2009 | 12:17 pm · Link
Did they try shooting him in the knee?
I hear that works well.
Argive - March 29, 2009 | 12:17 pm · Link
Let’s see how many warbloggers comment on this. I’m absolutely sure that Right Wing News, Little Green Footballs and the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler will read this article, do a bit of soul-searching and either admit being incorrect or disagree and come up with some solid evidence to back their opinions. I mean, there’s no way that bloggers of such class and style would support torture through specious, ignorant or racist arguments.
Anybody? Guys?
/crickets
Hyperion - March 29, 2009 | 12:44 pm · Link
@joe from Lowell:
IIRC Curveball was not tortured. He was a source for the Germans but I don’t think they coerced him. His info was offered to the US even though the Germans were skeptical of its authenticity.
Onihanzo - March 29, 2009 | 1:32 pm · Link
Oh Curveball.
Phoenician in a time of Romans - March 29, 2009 | 2:21 pm · Link
Gonzo, Yoo, Feith and the like are now limited to vacationing within the continental US, so as not to even risk crossing an international boundary for fear of arrest and extradition.
I believe US rules say that it is fine to kidnap people from the territory of an ally, and render them to torture in some client states. You have to wonder what would happen if the Italians stood up and said "Well, we’re willing to kidnap Americans"...
Funkhauser - March 29, 2009 | 2:25 pm · Link
This will trouble Fred Hiatt’s beautiful mind not at all, not at all.
nhoj - March 29, 2009 | 2:56 pm · Link
Shorter Marc Thiessen:
When the Post writes about the sequence of events they don’t consider that torture just works.
Woody - March 29, 2009 | 2:56 pm · Link
Well, it does slow ‘em down if they try to run…
so much of this stuff reminds me of the late unpleasantness in SWE Asia in which I and my generation partook.
one of the rules was, if they’re dead, they’re VC…and the memorable: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
nhoj - March 29, 2009 | 3:23 pm · Link
@nhoj:
I fail at html
someguy - March 29, 2009 | 4:29 pm · Link
You just wait. We’re going to find out soon the Troofers were right all along. That’ll be a happy day.
jcricket - March 29, 2009 | 4:58 pm · Link
The reality is that a significant portion (all?) of the torture-supporters are either in it for the revenge (i.e. "who cares if we kill people, I want those rag-heads to pay, and all of them are probably guilty in some way.") or dumb enough not to be able to understand long-ball (e.g. torture creating more enemies than we could possibly kill/capture, releasing innocent people after we’ve tortured them makes them into enemies, etc.).
That there’s even a "debate" about this issue shows how far we’ve fallen as a country. It’s as if one party cares only about getting power, and is willing to do anything (lie, cheat, steal, cater to people’s worst instincts) to maintain it.
I’m again reminded of this quote from 1984:
Gregory - March 29, 2009 | 6:28 pm · Link
I don’t think anyone could have expected that.
kay - March 29, 2009 | 6:37 pm · Link
@jcricket:
The reality is that a significant portion (all?) of the torture-supporters are either in it for the revenge (i.e. "who cares if we kill people, I want those rag-heads to pay, and all of them are probably guilty in some way."
"They couldn’t stand the idea that there wasn’t anything new," the official said. "They’d say, ‘You aren’t working hard enough.’ There was both a disbelief in what he was saying and also a desire for retribution—a feeling that ‘He’s going to talk, and if he doesn’t talk, we’ll do whatever.’ "
We’ll do whatever. Completely untethered from any rules or standards or norms, you probably get to "revenge" fairly quickly.
J. Michael Neal - March 29, 2009 | 6:39 pm · Link
I’m wondering what effect being an indicted war criminal would have on Yoo’s tenure at Berkeley.
SGEW - March 29, 2009 | 6:49 pm · Link
Every time one has to point out that 1984 was not an instruction manual, I weep a little for my country.
And every time a right-wing nutjob quotes Orwell in order to criticize the left, I die a little inside.
someguy - March 29, 2009 | 11:31 pm · Link
Yeah, me too. I reject the right wing’s smelly little orthodoxies.